It’s a pattern I see on a regular basis. During the initial consultation with a new patient, they talk about their low back pain, which invariably leads me to ask about their daily activities.
Spinal problems are really only caused by two things: trauma or a build up of daily activities. Patients know when they’ve had a trauma like a car accident or a fall, but they rarely consider how their daily movements and actions can lead to their problem.
Think about how much time you spend in that hunched over sitting position. You’re in it when you sit at your desk, drive your car, eat, text, or read. I’d conservatively estimate you’re in that position no less than 200 hours each month.
In my area of Houston, nearly all of my patients sit at computers all day and often have a long commute into work. Our Greenway Plaza office sits right in the middle of that corporate corridor, so I see it constantly. If you think about the posture you hold all day, you’d assume any pain would show up in your neck and upper back.
After all, you’re hunching and sticking your neck forward. How would that lead to low back pain? But if you sit all day and then I find out you’re also a runner, I know exactly where to look to get you answers and relief.
Sitting All Day Tightens Your Hamstrings and Hip Rotators
Patients who sit all day usually have tight hamstrings and hip rotators. If you also run, you tighten those muscle groups even more. Too often you’re either not stretching after your run at all, or you’re not stretching long enough to overcome how long you’ve been sitting. Picture a Memorial City marketing exec who logs 6 miles on Buffalo Bayou at 6am, then sits in meetings until 6pm. Those hamstrings never get a break, and they start pulling on the pelvis and low back.
Sitting All Day Weakens Your Core
You probably know strengthening your core is a good thing, but do you actually work on it? Think of your core as a muscular back support that wraps around your spine and takes strain off the vertebral joints. If you’re only working your front abdominal muscles and ignoring your low back and side abs, you’re not truly training your core. It’s only a matter of time before all that sitting leads to pain.
Sitting All Day Makes Your Spine Move Less
If your spinal muscles aren’t strong enough to support extended sitting, more strain lands on the spine itself. The spine is designed to move, and it needs that muscular support. Once your muscles fatigue, the spine often becomes fixated and immobile. That’s where chiropractic care comes in to get you moving again.
Why Our Approach Gets Runners Better Results
Here’s where we do things differently than most chiropractors. A lot of offices will pop your back and send you out the door. That might feel good for an afternoon, but it doesn’t fix why a runner’s low back locked up in the first place.
We start with precision x-ray analysis. Most chiropractors adjust based on feel. I want to see your actual spinal alignment and joint spacing before I touch you, because a runner’s compensation patterns show up clearly on film. That tells me exactly which segments are fixated and which ones are moving too much to make up for it.
For the runner whose discs and joints have taken years of compression from sitting plus repetitive impact, spinal decompression gently opens up the space between vertebrae and pulls pressure off the discs and nerves. Running is loading your spine thousands of times per mile. Decompression does the opposite, and it gives irritated tissue room to recover.
Then we layer in PEMF and HEIT to handle the soft tissue that manual adjustments alone can’t reach. PEMF drives recovery at the cellular level in those chronically tight hamstrings and hip rotators. HEIT runs on a similar electromagnetic principle but at much higher energy and deeper penetration, so we can get into the dense hip and low back musculature that keeps pulling your pelvis out of position. For a runner, that combination matters. We’re not just moving the joint, we’re calming down the muscles that lock it back up after your next long run.
That’s the difference. Restore the joint, decompress the discs, and rehab the tissue driving the whole pattern. You get back to your training instead of coming in every few weeks for another quick crack.
Before your spinal joints lock up completely, you can do a lot on your own. Put in solid time stretching after your run and build a real core routine, and you can head off a lot of unnecessary pain. Read more about common causes of low back pain if you want to understand what’s going on under the hood.
But if you don’t take action against this all too common formula, we’ll likely see you in our office soon. And if you’re already hurting, don’t wait for it to get worse. Schedule a consultation and let’s find out exactly what’s driving your pain.